


i'll never let them hurt you (i promise)

by hidefromeveryone



Series: Bandom One-Shots [10]
Category: My Chemical Romance
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Cuddling & Snuggling, Guilt, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, Nonbinary Character, Paramour Mansion, Regret, Thunder and Lightning, Trans Male Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-20
Updated: 2017-06-20
Packaged: 2018-11-16 10:01:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,856
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11250846
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hidefromeveryone/pseuds/hidefromeveryone
Summary: Mikey has left the Paramour Mansion, and the ghost of him is left behind.No one is dealing with it well, especially not Gerard.





	i'll never let them hurt you (i promise)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ghostofsmilespassed](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ghostofsmilespassed/gifts).



> i hate leaving my house. lmao.

Raindrops were splattering against the windowpanes, shaking the old foundations of the house as the storm raged on well into the night. The Paramour Mansion was dimly lit with candles, their orange glow casting small circles on the ancient floorboards as Frank inched his way around the dusty old building. His t-shirt lay loose against his chest as the fabric billowed around his body. Even though it was two sizes too big, the shadows of his breasts could still be made out. Binder balled up in his hand, his bare feet felt every puddle as splinters embedded themselves into his feet. The baggy pajama pants lay low on his hips, the waistband rolled five times over. Printed with Star Wars imagery, the old cotton smelled like Gerard and carried memories of an 80s childhood. 

Heading up the staircase, Frank heard the thunder crash in the storm above him, before the rain increased in volume and began horrifically dancing on the roof above him. The lighter in his hand kept flickering out, and he stumbled near the top of the stairs when the loose nails caught the rough edge of his pants. Regaining his balance, Frank continued forth, biting his lip anxiously as lightning flashed outside and lit the dim hallways for a few seconds at a time. 

Even if the place wasn’t haunted, the atmosphere was surely dead. 

There were no milky and opaque apparitions in the halls, flickering lights, shaking cabinets, or writing on foggy mirrors. But there was a heavy and oppressive blanket over everyone’s emotions, the kind that stifled out all happiness and came out in hesitant laughter and half-crooked smiles. The kind that came after the death of someone loved. 

Because Mikey wasn’t dead, but he was a skeleton walking. He had been found two nights ago with a handful of Xanax and a bottle of Vodka halfway finished on the bathroom floor, eyes fixed on a blank spot of the ceiling. There had been crying, and a hospital visit, and a bipolar diagnosis, and a recommendation of an intensive outpatient treatment program. And then Mikey was gone, and the four of them were left alone in the mansion, to finish an album that began with five friends and a handful of ideas. 

The question lying on the tip of all of their tongues was whether or not Mikey would get better, and if he would come back if he did. 

None of them wanted to think about what would happen if Mikey really left the band. 

So, as Frank walked down the upstairs hall, he felt as if the ghost of Mikey was floating beside him. He passed the room where Brian was clacking the keys on his laptop, burning the midnight oil and typing up a letter to send off to some anonymous official in a hidden office somewhere at Warner Bros. Studios in California. A few paces later and Frank was past a closed door, with noises of muffled sobbing and reassurances behind it. Ray and Bob had each other, and Frank knew that their support came easier away from the eyes of the others. It wasn’t that they were all grieving together, because they were, but it was because sometimes, grief is best spoken in the company of two. 

Reaching the end of the hall, Frank peered into the cracked doorway. A flash of lightning illuminated the small room, which had been kept preserved over the years. Interrupting its Victorian attire was an air mattress in the middle of the room, with a lump of blanket on one side covering up a human form. As Frank lightly padded across the floor, he noticed that Gerard was lightly breathing in their sleep and hugging one of Mikey’s t-shirts close to their chest. It was the first time Gerard had slept since they had found Mikey, and seeing him curled up and peaceful was calming. They weren’t crying, which meant that Frank wasn’t crying and pretending he wasn’t to keep Gerard from crying even more. 

A few weeks before, Frank’s air mattress had popped when a stray cigarette butt had burned a hole through the plastic, sending him tumbling to the ground on a stray midnight after a long day of recording. Ever since then, he had been sharing an air mattress with Gerard. 

Which wasn’t a problem, but Frank was always unsure of whether or not Gerard needed a personal space to get away to at night. This left him wandering the halls at increasingly late hours, waiting for his friend to fall asleep before he carefully climbed into bed beside him. 

Now, looking down at Gerard’s sleeping form, Frank wondered just how he was supposed to climb into bed beside them when all of the blankets were tightly wrapped around their body’s frame and they were spread across the majority of the bed. Weighing his options, Frank realized that if he were to flop onto the bed in a refined and graceful manner that he would most likely be able to loosen the blankets enough to while away from the cold himself. 

Placing his binder on the ground and flicking off his lighter, Frank stretched his back and flopped onto the bed. 

Way too hard, if the way that Gerard screeched and flew off of the bed was any indication.

Scrambling upwards, Frank quickly rounded the edge of the mattress to kneel next to Gerard, who was staring at the ceiling with one hand tightly gripping their brother’s t-shirt. 

“Hey, Gerard, shit, I’m so sorry. Are you alright? Fuck, I hope I didn’t hurt you.” Gerard rolled over onto their side, and made eye contact with Frank before grabbing the hem of his shirt and pulling him down onto the floor beside them. 

“I’m fine from the fall.” Gerard was lacing their fingers between Frank’s, the grime and dirt under their fingernails staining their nail beds tan and emphasizing the circles beneath their eyes every time the lightning flashed overhead. 

“Otherwise?” Frank moved his head closer to Gerard’s, tapping their foreheads together and mixing their warm breath in the otherwise cool room. Their noses were touching, and Frank could feel how oily Gerard’s skin was. His nose piercing was slighting scraping their skin, leaving a faint residue from its cheap metal. 

“No.” As the two stayed close to one another and waited for time to pass, the inexhaustible beast, the silence was never uncomfortable. It was filled with their love and compassion and concern for each other, their deep bond that didn’t need words to express just how truly much they meant to each other. “He’s my brother, Frank, and I didn’t notice. Why didn’t I notice Mikey was that bad? That he was in the same place I was in not that long ago? Why didn’t I notice that Mikey wanted to die so badly until he was already halfway there? I didn’t fucking notice. And I can’t - I can’t fucking forgive myself for that.” 

“Gerard, you can’t - you can’t fucking blame yourself for that dude. I mean, I know you’re feeling that. I am, too. We all are. But we can’t - we can’t listen to that. We can spend the rest of our lives focusing on what we could have done better or what we could have noticed sooner to prevent this from happening, and we will, just like we did with you when you were in the exact same hole yourself. We need to focus on the future though, what we can do to help Mikey now. How we can make sure this doesn’t happen again. Just like we did for you. We’re not failing him, I promise you this, Gerard. None of us noticed, because Mikey didn’t want us to notice. He didn’t want to drag us down with him. He was quiet in every way that you were loud. But, now we can make noise for him. We’re gonna protect him. And while everyone’s protecting him, I’m going to protect you, too. Because I won’t let you hurt yourself over this guilt, Gerard.” Gerard’s hands were covering their face now, in an attempt to cover up their tears from Frank. He gently pulled them downwards, so he could look into their eyes once more. 

“Frank, I just - he’s my baby brother. I - I fucking failed him, man. It’s my job to make sure he stays okay, to make sure that no one hurts him. I couldn’t even protect him from himself.” Frank was hugging Gerard now, holding him close as they curled further into themselves. He was rubbing soothing circles onto their back, and waiting for his own tears to stop falling so he could wipe Gerard’s away without blurred vision. 

“It’s not your fault, Gee, don’t blame yourself. None of this is your fault. You were the one that saved him, that got him the help he needed. You were the one that kept him alive. You didn’t fail him in any way. I promise you, Mikey is alive right now because you were there to save him when he couldn’t save himself.” Gerard’s sobs had died down as Frank whispered reassurances into his ears, trying to comfort his friend in any possible way that he could. 

“Are you sure, Frankie?” Gerard’s lip was resting between their rows of teeth, being ground to a pulp as he worried the small piece of flesh between them. Frank gently pulled their lip free, frowning at the small blood vessels which had burst near the surface before wiping them away with the fabric of his t-shirt. 

“I’m sure, Gee.” Gerard only nodded in response, and the two friends lapsed into silence again. After several minutes, Frank carefully helped Gerard to their feet, steadying them when they swayed slightly in the night. He guided them to bed, tucking the blankets around their form as they turned to face away from Frank, nestling their face between their hands and their chest. Satisfied that Gerard was tucked in properly, Frank rounded the corner of the mattress and climbed beneath the blankets himself. As they lay on the air mattress, feeling it perpetually deflate beneath them, their fingers found each other once more and intertwined under the moonlight streaming in from the window. 

“Hey, Frankie?” Gerard’s eyes were lidded, as sleep threatened to take hold of them once more. The adrenaline from Mikey’s attempt was wearing off. They moved their body closer to Frank’s, until their lips were almost touching. 

“Yeah, Gee?” Their lips graced each other’s coming together in what could be classified as either an accidental brush of limbs or a ghost of a kiss. 

“Thank you.” Gerard was falling asleep now, curled up into Frank’s body as if their skeletons had been designed to perfectly fit against each other’s. 

“Always.” Frank draped his arms around Gerard, and they drifted off into a peaceful sleep that they both desperately needed yet thought was unattainable during daylight hours. 

When the sun rose the next morning, they were still draped around each other, holding each other close against the rest of the world as a form of unbreakable protection.

**Author's Note:**

> tumblr: @hidefromeveryone
> 
> work title taken from: "vampires will never hurt you" by my chemical romance


End file.
